Accelerated Slope Tone Control Equalizers*

DENNIS A. BOHN, AES Member

Rane Corporation, Mukilteo, WA, USA

A tone-control shelving equalizer providing low shelf (bass) boost and cut, as well
as high shelf (treble) boost and cut is described. The active filter stages provide sharpened
(accelerated) amplitude versus frequency response characteristics at the band transitions,
thus leaving-the center frequencies uncorrupted by out-of-band effect of the tone controls.

0 INTRODUCTION the amplitude versus frequency response when boosting

The need for bass and treble tone-control circuits
with steeper slopes has been obvious to the author since
his 1976 writings [l] on the subject of designing tone-
control circuits. It became clear that it did not matter
if the tone-control circuits were passive or active, tube, controls cause amplification (boost) or attenuation (cut)
transistor, or integrated circuits; they all suffered from at a substantially constant slope or rate, then level off
the same malady of too much interaction with the mid-
band frequencies.
The opportunity to pursue this subject did not appear
again until 1987. While designing a 16-channel matrix
mixer, the author investigated, using computer circuit
analysis, the possibility of creating steeper slopes for
conventional bass and treble tone-control circuits. The terms). This would be for an ideal filter circuit. In
project was canceled before the circuit could be fin-
alized. In 1989 the author resurrected the circuit for a
new microphone input module. The circuit was finally
completed in 1990 and steeper slope tone controls were
a reality. The new circuit, dubbed “Accelerated Slope
Tone Controls™ ,” was awarded a patent in 1991 [2].¹
1 BACKGROUND
Tone-control equalizers, as the term is used here,
refer to relatively uncomplex bass and treble tone con-
trols found on most high-fidelity systems and on certain
professional audio recording consoles and mixers. Most
of these circuits use some variation of Baxandall’s
negative-feedback circuit done in 1952 [3]. The Bax-
andall tone-control circuit is commonly referred to as
a “shelving” control because of the shape created by
or cutting the low and high end frequencies. The shape
of the response curves when using such a shelving circuit
is that of a shelf, contrasted with peak or dip-type
(bandpass) response shapes, and further contrasted with
total boosting or cutting of the response. Shelving tone
to a flat response. The magnitude of this constant slope
is the issue.
Almost universally, these shelving tone controls use
one-pole filter circuits. The steepest response slope
that can ever by achieved by a one-pole filter is, of
course, 6 dB/octave (or 20 dB/decade, equivalent
practice, the overall shelving tone-control transfer
function results in a response slope that rarely exceeds
about 3 dB/octave. (Due to the close proximity of the
pole and zero of the transfer function, there is near
cancellation; a 2.7-dB/octave slope is typical for ±12
dB designs.) This gentle slope causes the control to
influence the midband frequencies because of overlap-
ping effects from the adjacent high and low frequencies.
Such corruption causes disturbing effects on the critical
midband frequencies. This is an unwanted situation.
If you want to add bass or treble, you want to do so
without disturbing the midband frequencies. What is
needed are tone-control circuits with steeper (or “ac-
celerated”) slopes.
Ideally the boost and cut tone controls should change
the slope of the transition frequencies into the high
and low end but should not alter the response charac-

* Presented at the 92nd Convention of the Audio Engi- ¹ Royalty-free licenses are available from the author and
neering Society, Vienna, Austria, 1992 March 24-27. Rane Corporation.

J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol 40, No. 12, 1992 December

ENGINEERING REPORTS
teristics of the center or midband frequencies. Practical,
existing filter designs so far have not effectively isolated
the high and low band tone controls from the center or
midband frequencies.
Although it is conceivable that filters having addi-
tional poles with sharper response characteristics could
be incorporated into the tone-control circuitry, such
multiple-pole filters create a different problem. That
problem is the creation of excessive phase shift, ap-
proaching 180°, which produces cancellations and
dropouts due to frequencies that are out of phase with
the input signal. Stability problems also appear because
of the tendency of oscillations at or near the 180° phase
shift region. Rather than accent such problems of drop-
outs, or cancellations and other instabilities, most tone-
control circuits use the single-pole filter. Such single-
pole filters have a maximum phase shift of 90° and,
therefore, are inherently stable and preclude cancel-
lations since the frequency shift never approaches the
180° region.
2 ACCELERATED SLOPE TONE CONTROLS
This engineering report offers a solution to the fore-
going problem of unwanted corruption of the midband
frequencies due to variations in the tone controls, by
incorporating in the equalizer, filters that have two,
three, or more poles to achieve the desired steepness
of the frequency response and then compensating for
the otherwise excessive phase shift that would result
by incorporating one or more zeros offset from the
poles so as to lie outside the high or low band frequencies
of interest. One such offset zero is being provided for
each additional pole that is added to the filter. This
offset zero is to be distinguished from a zero occurring
in the overall transfer function of the shelving-type
tone control that is caused by the interaction of the
filter’s pole with the broad-band signal, and which
causes the response curve to flatten out as a shelf. The
zero due to pole interaction appears away from the
midband and is directly within the high (or low) band
of interest.
Thus a two-pole shelving filter is used, with one,
additional offset zero being located away from the two
poles and toward the midband. The two poles provide
the desired steep rise or fall into the low (or high) end
frequencies, and yet as the frequency moves back into
the midband, the otherwise excessive phase shift that
would occur with such a two-pole circuit is neatly can-
celed out by the offset zero, restricting the phase shift
back to a maximum of approximately 90° or less. The
offset zero is preferably located toward the midband,
and the influence the zero has on the amplitude of the
signal in the low and high adjacent bands is inconse-
quential because of the effects of the remaining un-
canceled pole.
Alternatively, three poles are used in the shelving
filters and two offset zeros are provided to cancel the
phase change contributions due to the second and third
pole essentially in the same manner as described for a
J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 40. No. 12, 1992 December
TONE CONTROL EQUALIZERS
two-pole, one-offset zero filter.
Thus, in general, the accelerated slope circuit pro-
vides a tone-control equalizer having a low and/or high
end controllable gain filter stage with n poles and n –
1 offset zeros, where n is any integer value of 2 or
more. While the principles of the circuit may be adopted
in a variety of controllable equalizer circuits, the pre-
ferred application is in a relatively simple bass and
treble tone-control equalizer configured in a shelving-
type filter using active filter components. These and
other advantages and features of Accelerated Slope
Tone Controls will be better understood after reading
the detailed description of the figures in the next section.
3 DESCRlPTlON OF FIGURES
Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an Accelerated Slope
Tone Control using the phase-compensating offset zero
in a two-pole, one-zero equalizer filter circuit adapting
the author’s equalizer topology [4] for tone-control
use.
Fig. 2 is a plot of relative amplitude versus frequency
showing, for comparison, the two- and three-pole. one-
and two-zero phase-compensated tone-control circuits
superimposed on a corresponding plot of the response
characteristics of a conventional one-pole tone-control
filter. Note the comparisons between the steepness of
the slopes, and that it takes a three-pole phase-com-
pensated circuit to approach the theoretical 6 dB/octave
expected from the conventional one-pole design. It is
very interesting to note that the actual slope of the full
theoretical +12 dB boosted response, using the three-
pole circuit, is only about 5.2 dB/octave. So three poles
want to be 18 dB/octave, but only yield about 5 dB/
octave. Very roughly each pole improves the slope by
about 1 dB/octave. However, the sonic benefit is im-
mense since the total area under the curve now unaf-
fected is quite large.
Fig 3 shows the amplitude versus frequency and re-
lated phase shift versus frequency plots of the two-
pole phase-compensated filter of Fig. 1 (large solid
squares) and, for comparison, the corresponding plots
of a conventional one-pole filter (small solid squares),
a two-pole filter without phase compensation (small
open squares), and the three-pole filter phase-compen-
sated circuitry of Fig. 5 (large open squares).
It is observed from Fig. 3(a) that the two-pole phase
compensation provides a relative attenuation slope that
is significantly steeper than the one-pole response
characteristics, but is slightly less sharp relative to the
two-pole uncompensated attenuation slope. The three-
pole phase compensation is even sharper than the two-
pole phase compensation and may be a desirable al-
ternative in some applications.
In Fig. 3(b) the constraint on the phase shift is well
illustrated by comparing the two-pole uncompensated
phase shift characteristics of the bass filter where the
signal will shift in phase through 90° at 100 Hz and
continues on toward the 180° phase shift region as the
signal approaches midband. By comparison, the two-
BOHN ENGINEERING REPORTS

pole phase-compensated curve (with the offset zero proaches the center of midband, The three-pole phase-
added) shows that the phase shift increases toward the compensated curve shows. a matching phase shift to
90° shift level but never reaches 90°, leveling out to a that of the two-pole uncompensated circuit just be-
shift of somewhat less than 90° as the frequency ap- yond the 90° point and then the zeros kick in and bring

Fig. 1. Accelerated Slope Tone Control equalizer using two-pole, one-zero phase-compensated networks.

Fig. 2. Comparison between conventional and accelerated slope designs.

J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 40. No. 12, 1992 December
ENGlNEERlNG REPORTS
the phase shift back to 90° by the time midband fre-
quencies are reached. Thus the phase shiftplots for
one-pole, two-pole phase-compensated, and three-pole
phase-compensated filters all provide stable filter cir-
cuits, and yet the two- and three-pole phase-compen-
sated filter circuits offer the significantly enhanced
steepness of the accelerated response curve at the edges
of the high and low bands.
Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows schematic diagrams of the
bass and treble active inverting filter stages removed
from the shelving circuitry of the equalizer of Fig. 1.
Fig. 4(c) gives the formulas relating the RC component
values to the recommended pole and zero locations.
As indicated, the zero of the bass network is placed
optimally at 1.8 times the corner frequency of the pole;
and the zero for the treble network is placed at a fre-
quency obtained by dividing the pole corner frequency
Fig. 3. (a) Amplitude comparison between designs, (b) Phase shift comparison between designs.
TONE CONTROL EQUALIZERS
by the 2.2 factor.
Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of an alternative ap-
plication having three-pole, two-zero filters in which
the added offset zero phase compensates the added third
pole just as the one zero compensates for the one ad-
ditional pole in the two-pole, one-zero equalizer circuit
of Fig. 1.
The set of related diagrams in Fig. 6 shows, respec-
tively a noninverting phase-compensated filter stage
for bass (low end) frequencies and associated frequency/
component value computations for the pole and zero
locations, a simplified amplitude versus frequency plot
showing the location of the corner frequencies of the
poles and zero related to the circuit components of the
filter stage of Fig. 6(a), and a treble (high end) filter
stage of the noninverting type that is the complement
of the bass filter and also showing the frequency/com-
BOHN ENGINEERNG REPORTS

ponent value computations. Fig. 6(b) includes a step- celerated slope circuit, some discussion is needed of
by-step design procedure. (Noninverting phase-com- the operation of the equalizer circuit. This type of
pensated filter stages find application in any equalizer equalizer circuit (typical, in principle, of many topol-
topology requiring filters that do not invert phase, the ogies) has the effect of adding back a frequency-de-
most common example being the popular two opera- pendent signal to an input signal having a flat (fre-
tional amplifier boost/cut series summing circuit of quency-independent) signal in the case of boost, and
Gundry [5] and others. adding back the reciprocal of the frequency-dependent
component in the case of cut. As mentioned, a con-
4 OBSERVATIONS, DETAILS, AND THEORY ventional one-pole filter within a shelving equalizer
causes a pole-induced zero (due to the characteristic
Thus by careful selection of the pole and zero lo- signal-combining effects of this type of equalizer) to
cations of filter sections in this type of shelving filter
equalizer, sharper amplitude versus frequency curves
are achieved in the transition regions between the mid-
band, as indicated in Fig. 2 and the adjacent treble and
bass end bands. The manner of selecting the pole and
zero locations is discussed in the following. When
properly placed in accordance with the principles de-
scribed, the filter response characteristics of the high-
pass and low-pass circuits leave the center frequencies
(in the Fig. 1 example centered at 1 kHz) substantially
uncorrupted by the out-of-band effects of the frequency-
dependent characteristics of conventional one-pole fil-
ters (see Fig. 2). In effect, by using multiple-pole filters
with one or more offset compensating zeros, one com-
pensating zero for each excess pole, the slope of the
amplitude versus frequency response at the adjacent
high and low bands is accentuated or, in other words,
“accelerated” over what is normally achieved by the
single-pole active filters. Yet by placing the zeros to
cancel out the excess poles as the frequencies enter the
midband region, the center frequencies are left uncor-
rupted, as shown by the solid-line response character-
istics of Fig. 2. With regard to the placement of the Fig. 4. (a) Inverting bass network. (b) Inverting treble net-
additional pole and zero in a two-pole, one-zero ac- work. (c) Compensating zero locations.

Fig. 5. Accelerated Slope Tone Control equalizer using three-pole, two-zero phase-compensated networks.
ENGINEERING REPORTS
occur at a frequency away from midband and located
at the corner of the shelf. Such a pole-induced zero is
to be compared with and distinguished from the filter’s
offset compensating zero of this engineering report,
which is incorporated in the filter stage itself and has
a frequency located toward the midband from the filter’s
pole and away from the high (or low) band of interest.
When the phase shift of the added back or cut back
signal is 45° or less in phase shift from the main signal,
then a straightforward addition and reciprocal feedback
circuit works fine. The problem comes when the equal-
izer circuit starts introducing a phase shift of 90° or
more. Between 90 and 180° or more, cancellation starts
to take effect because the equalized signal has become
shifted in phase so that it is opposite in amplitude relative
to the main signal. The cancellation area of concern is
Fig. 6. (a) Noninverting bass network. (b) Noninverting treble
network. (c) Pole-zero relative locations.
TONE CONTROL EQUALIZERS
between 90 and 270° and is maximum with complete
cancellation at 180°.
The configuration of a two-pole, one-zero offset
equalizer network has the effect of adding an additional
pole to sharpen the rise in the case of boosting, and
the fall in the case of cutting. The offset placement of
the zero relative to the poles is to minimize or limit
the amount of phase shifting that occurs in the equalizer,
particularly as the corner frequency of the filter is ap-
proached. In other words; right around the 90° phase
shift point, the zero kicks in and starts to minimize the
amount of overall phase shifting that occurs to a max-
imum of 90° rather than a maximum of 180°. as in the
case of a two-pole circuit without an offset zero.
In designing the bass filter, the compensating zero
on a two-pole circuit is placed at an octave above the
pole corner. More particularly, it is placed at substan-
tially 1.8 times the corner frequency, hence toward the
midband for bass to achieve in this particular tone con-
trol an empirically derived; optimal phase compensation
without substantial degradation of the two-pole response
slope. The range of acceptable indexes or ratios is 1.75
to 2.75 times the corner frequency for bass boost and
cut.
For the treble filter, the index or ratio is divided into
the corner frequency. Thus in placing the compensating
zero for the treble filter shown in Fig. 1 that has a
corner frequency of 7.0 kHz, the 7.0 kHz is divided
by the selected ratio within the range of 1.75 to 2.75.
For this example, using an index ratio of 2.2, the zero
would be placed at 7.0 kHz divided by 2.2, or 3.18
kHz. It is observed that the placement of the zero in
the treble network is at a frequency less than the corner
frequency and hence toward the midband, as it is in
this area, where the phase shift starts to produce can-
cellation effects if a double pole without the zero com-
pensation is used.
5 SUMMARY
A new bass and treble audio tone-control circuit for
changing amplitude versus frequency response in low
and high bands, respectively, is presented whereby the
amplitude versus frequency response of the midband
frequencies is substantially unaffected by changes in
settings of the bass and treble controls.
Each high and low end band filter network has mul-
tiple poles and offset zeros located at a frequency so
as to restrict the maximum phase shift of the filter to
within a safe level not greater than about 90°. It has
been shown that by using multiple-pole filters with
optimally placed compensating zeros, the steepness of
the conventional bass and treble tone-control equalizers
can be substantially increased, and that these accelerated
slopes are unconditionally stable and offer enhanced
aural benefits due to lack of center frequency distur-
bances. Thus the true purpose of bass and treble tone
controls comes closer to reality: Accelerated Slope Tone
Controls alter bass and treble frequencies without
changing the critical midband frequencies.
BOHN ENGINEERlNG REPORT

8 REFERENCES
[1] D. Bohn, Ed., Audio Handbook (National Semi-
conductor Corp., 1976).
[2] D. Bohn, “Audio Signal Equalizer Having A C-
celerated Slope Phase Shift Compensated Filters,” U.S.
Patent 5,046,105 (1991 Sept.).
[3] P. Baxandall, “Negative Feedback Tone Con-
trol-Independent Variation of Bass and Treble Without
Switches,” Wire & World, vol. 58, p. 402 (1952 Oct.):
[4] D. Bohn, “Reciprocal, Subtractive, Audio
Spectrum Equalizer,” U.S. Patent 4,891,841 (1990
Jan.).
[5] K. Gundry, “Adjustable Equalizers Useable in
Audio Spectrum,” U.S. Patent 3,921,104 (1975 Nov.).

THE AUTHOR

Dennis A. Bohn was born in San Fernando, Cali- audio products prompted him to leave Phase Linear
fornia, in 1942. He received B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. and accept the position of vice president of engi-
degrees from the University of California at Berkeley neering for Rane Corporation. In 1984, he became
in 1972 and 1974, respectively. Between undergraduate a principal of Rane Corporationand assumed the po-
and graduate schools, he worked as a research and sition of vice president in charge of research and
development engineer for the Hewlett-Packard Com- development, where he now designs and develops
pany developing thin-film high-speed oscillators. Upon advanced analog and digital products for the profes-
completion of his M.S.E.E., he accepted a position sional audio industry.
with National Semiconductor Corporation as a linear Mr. Bohn is a member of the AES, the IEEE, and
application engineer specializing in audio. While at Tau Beta Pi, and is listed in the First Edition of Who’s
National Semiconductor, he created the Audio Hand- Who In Science and Engineering. He has designed more
book, acting as technical editor and contributing author. than 30 consumer and professional audio products and
In 1976, he accepted the position of senior design en- authored over 100 articles in national and international
gineer for Phase Linear Corporation, where he was magazines, including his many convention papers de-
involved in designing several consumer audio products. livered before the Audio Engineering Society. He has
Promoted to engineering manager in 1978, he was re- published three articles in the AES Journal and holds
sponsible for developing the professional audio products two U.S. patents. Recently, Mr. Bohn wrote the entry
division. on equalizers for the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of
In 1982 Mr. Bohn’s strong interest in professional Science & Technology, 7th edition.